Story: Behind Enemy Lines

I'm excited to be posting a new story. I held a contest on my blog last year and the prize was a story commission. I'd intended for the story to be finished in a couple of weeks and run around 3,000 words. Well, it is six months later and just shy of 13,000 words. Oh well.

The story features mind control and women being converted from non-smokers into smokers.

I want to give a big shout out to blackbladder for the story idea and to Steve Wells for looking the story over and giving me amazing feedback.


Behind Enemy Lines
By Varian Milagro
Based on the story idea by Blackbladder

“Andie, what do you think your previous supervisor would say is your greatest weakness?” Melinda Harris asked out of courtesy. She didn’t even bother listening to the reply. She picked at the remains of her Caesar salad and focused on avoiding Andie’s secondhand smoke.

Melinda and Andie were seated at a small outdoor table at Hogan’s Heroes, an independent lunch spot a couple miles from NTA, the company where Melinda worked. Both ladies were in their early forties and slim for their age. That is where the similarities ended. Andie stood an inch over five-foot and had straight, black hair so long that she sometimes sat on it if she wasn’t careful. Melinda pushed six-foot in heels and had naturally wavy, red hair that stopped just shy of her generous bosom. Another difference was their disposition. Melinda had warm, inviting eyes and she smiled constantly. Andie looked like her face might crack if she tried to smile and her eyes betrayed a cold, calculating intelligence.

Contest #1 result

Congratulations to Blackbladder on winning a short story commission in my inaugural contest. With nearly half on the entries in the contest it was little surprise that he won. Once Blackbladder and I work out the story parameters I will get to work on it. The story will most likely be posted on this blog sometime in the future.

There will be other contests coming soon. I think that I am going to post most of my stories to my blog first before posting them on other story sites. I'll come up with a contest of some sort around the story.

Varian.

Win a custom short story!

Contest!
First prize: A custom short story!

I'm launching my first ever contest. The first (and only) prize is a customized short story written by me. You will need to work for it though. I'm looking for help with my latest story "Role with It" and I think that you are the one who can help me.

There are three ways to enter the contest.

#1. Suggest a better title. It needs to be a reasonable title that makes sense based on the material.
-OR-
#2. Suggest a synopsis. A sentence or two that entices a reader to read the story, but doesn't give away the whole story.